I'm not used to practice in the mornings. I'm an afternoon and night swimmer. So, I'm guessing that I was dehydrated at our past Saturday morning practice. As I was doing my backstroke sets and pushed off the wall after a flipturn, I got HORRIBLE cramps in my calf muscles. They were so bad that I had to stop and go to the ladder and stand on it. I was able to finish practice without any more problems. I noticed Saturday afternoon, that my legs were a little sore, but nothing too terrible. When I got out of bed on Sunday morning, I nearly fell over on my face. Both of my calves hurt SOOO BAD!! Needless to say, no swimming or running took place on Sunday. It took me forever to get warmed up enough to walk normally!
They were a little better yesterday, but I still took the day off from exercise to rest them. They better today, but they still hurt when I point my toes. I'm debating whether I should go to practice today. I guess I could do the whole workout with a pull bouy. I hope I haven't really hurt them somehow. Anybody ever had this problem? Is it indeed just a sore muscle? Could it be something else? Should I still practice today?
Interesting, as I'm primarily a morning swimmer and if I get cramps they tend to happen when I swim at noon or evenings. I also run, and most of the time when I don't swim in the morning, I run then...so I blame the cramps on running.
Some great advice here, but I think maybe it has to do with just break from routine and normal habits.
We were always told that a cure is to keep your calcium high. I took Calcium cassinate (spelling could be wrong)
Have a look here www.medicinenet.com/.../article.htm
That's what the coach told me on Saturday. Said to make sure the vitamins didn't contain Phosphorus, because it prevents the absorption of Calcium.
I'm not used to practice in the mornings. I'm an afternoon and night swimmer. So, I'm guessing that I was dehydrated at our past Saturday morning practice. As I was doing my backstroke sets and pushed off the wall after a flipturn, I got HORRIBLE cramps in my calf muscles. They were so bad that I had to stop and go to the ladder and stand on it. I was able to finish practice without any more problems. I noticed Saturday afternoon, that my legs were a little sore, but nothing too terrible. When I got out of bed on Sunday morning, I nearly fell over on my face. Both of my calves hurt SOOO BAD!! Needless to say, no swimming or running took place on Sunday. It took me forever to get warmed up enough to walk normally!
They were a little better yesterday, but I still took the day off from exercise to rest them. They better today, but they still hurt when I point my toes. I'm debating whether I should go to practice today. I guess I could do the whole workout with a pull bouy. I hope I haven't really hurt them somehow. Anybody ever had this problem? Is it indeed just a sore muscle? Could it be something else? Should I still practice today?
I get them also. If I don't eat a banana within a couple of days of swimming. I have swim practice 3 times one week and 4 the other. Ever day after I eat a peanut butter sandwich a bannana and a bottle of 100 vegetable juice. I am ok if I do this but If I miss I get a charlie horse. I just swim and walk normal. Excercise it out. Just make sure you don't massage your legs. you could get blood clots. You can rub your leg I don't mean that but don't put one of those massagers on them. Also when I am doing the backstroke that is when I get them also.
We were always told that a cure is to keep your calcium high. I took Calcium cassinate (spelling could be wrong)
Have a look here www.medicinenet.com/.../article.htm
Did you just start S C season? Potassium in lots of things will help.
Yes as a matter of fact, we just started last week.
I did go to practice today. You guys were right. That helped more than anything. They feel much better now. I had no problems today. When I got done, I drank a Powerade. No problems.
I get that a lot. My calves are the worst. It doesn't sound like you did anything too serious, you might have had something like a charley horse, possibly by too much strain on your calves before being properly warmed up and hydrated. I find that some simple calf stretches during practice will help, and I always like seated stretches with a towel around my foot in the morning.
My issues are usually not helped by a pull bouy, however, because I tend to point my toes even more than usual when pulling, and kicking helps me keep my sore muscles active and warm.
I also hear that potassium can help, but I won't sink to the level of eating a banana to find out. (I can't stand bananas unless they dance.)
:banana:
We have guys on our team who get horrible leg cramps if we swim the main set really hard then they try to come back and swim a mop up set - bam! I know they have tried a lot of different preventive measures but I noticed they are both very muscled guys (read, possibly not too flexible). If you can't stand eating a banana before practice (I wouldn't) you might try a potassium supplement pill instead. I really think it goes back to electrolytes too.
I get calf cramps occasionally as well. Maybe once per year I'll get one bad enough that the muscle is sore for a couple days afterward. I wouldn't worry about swimming while the muscle is sore. My best advice for prevention is to stay hydrated. Drink from a water bottle throughout practice.
I recently experienced the worse leg cramp of my life! I was finishing a 2.5k open water event, (actually swam 2.85k cause of bad turn but that is another story) and almost could not finish the last 25 yards because of the cramp. Looking back and talking to my daughter, I deduced that I had so wanted to be hydrated for the race that I flushed all the electrolytes from my system (had drank water only starting at 5:30am, and a lot of it!) and never put any back in. She advised that I should have had something to boost their level...like a gel pack or something similiar....dont know if this helps, but I was easily sore the next day and more.
